Within the prior art, it is known to buffer packets being received from a packet switching network to handle the variance in delays experienced by the packets through the packet switching network. Such buffers are called jitter buffers. Within the prior art, it is known to utilize variable buffering for the jitter buffers. However, within the prior art, the jitter buffers are generally in the range of 10 to 100 milliseconds in length. The reason for the short length of the jitter buffers is to prevent delays during a telephone conversation. If the buffer length is too large, the delay from when a person speaks a word until the other person on the conversation hears that word will be unacceptable from a human factors point of view. However, the normal jitter buffer length used for telephone conversations does result in a quality loss due to packet loss resulting from the jitter. Hence, for telephone conversations, the length of the buffer is a trade-off between degradation of the voice quality and the amount the delay that is acceptable from a human factors point of view. However, the normal jitter buffer length used for telephone conversations does result in a quality loss due to packet loss resulting from the jitter being larger than the length of the jitter buffer. Voice mail systems, conference call recording systems, financial and legal service systems, or bureaus that do translation and transcription require high-quality voice. At the same time, the impact of delays due to long jitter buffers are inconsequential for recorded voice applications.